


Living Against The Lines

by Laliandra



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: Kink Negotiation, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Spanking, Subspace, polyamorous pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-24 20:33:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14363106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laliandra/pseuds/Laliandra
Summary: “Hey,” Lovett says eventually, looking at his screen rather than Tommy. “You know, I could... I could lend you Ronan, if you wanted.”





	Living Against The Lines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joshlymanwalkandtalk (Joshlymanwalkandtalk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joshlymanwalkandtalk/gifts).



> I literally cannot thank my lovely editors enough, I had no idea where I was going so many times, and y'all lit the way. Title from [this](https://youtu.be/fKcHbFitPAM)

It’s only the new interns who vaguely exchange a ‘what the hell?’ look when Lovett finishes an uninterruptible stream of, “Hey Tommy”s across the office with, “Ronan wants to know if you’re up for date night next week?” 

“Depends, is he going to take me somewhere worth my while?” Tommy asks, feigning disinterest, typing out an email that’s clearly going to end up trashed.

“Make your own arrangements about your date with my boyfriend,” Lovett says breezily. “I’m going to be on the West Coast where my dog and the sun live. You wanna go to the frozen fucking hinterlands, you sort out your own fancy restaurants.” 

Tommy watches Lovett’s hand wave and realises he hasn’t been looking at his screen this whole time. “I’m going to see my mom, Lovett,” he says. “And you were in New York like, a week ago. Stop being an asshole and tell me if I need to bring a suit.” 

Lovett says, “In case you’re too dressed down in your regular everyday dress shirt and slacks combo?” but he’s texting with that small, crooked smile that means Ronan.

“Okay, I gotta ask-” Tanya starts.

“Oh god,” Jon says in the fatalistic tones that Tommy associates with ‘brought to you by tommyjohn.’ 

Lovett makes an open mouthed face of ‘how dare you’ at Jon, who sighs and takes his coffee cup most of the ways back behind his monitor. 

Lovett smiles sunnily over at Tanya. “Yes?” he says. “Is this about Tommy’s dress code? Or his nerd dates with Ronan, because that’s even less interesting. If you can believe that.”

“Tommy,” Tanya says, ignoring him. “All I wanted to know was if you really call it date night, like, to each other’s faces, because I thought it was like, a bit you do with Lovett.”

Tommy would not have called it Date Night, but Lovett does, so that means he’s allowed. Lovett calls it Date Night when Tommy stays at the New York apartment and takes Ronan out to restaurants that Lovett doesn’t want to make that much effort just to eat in. They’ve been doing it for years, as long as Lovett’s lived in LA. Sometimes it’s when Lovett’s in town, sometimes not. 

Lovett started this, so Tommy’s allowed to make jokes about it. Tommy always gets the check. Ronan always opens the cab door. Tommy has thought about getting Ronan flowers more than once, actually meant to once or twice, near the beginning. He probably would, if it were someone else. He... doesn’t think too hard about that, or any other of the jokes that he doesn’t make, because those kind of jokes are only funny if they’re categorically untrue or easily could be true. “We do call it date night _and_ it’s a bit,” he says, very firmly. 

“It’s fine, I’m very secure in both of their affections,” Lovett says, because he is. Tommy knows, knows every tell Lovett has, has heard Lovett call Ronan after a show that didn’t go well, been shown comments on Ronan’s instagram to laugh over, has watched Ronan come home to him over and over. 

He says, “Come on, if Lovett was jealous I would have heard about it every single day for the past five fucking years.” Which is also how he knows he is safe in Lovett’s affections too. That Lovett would tell him, always tells him the truth, small and large and stupid and ugly as many truths are. 

“Believe me, there is nothing to be jealous about. Last time I came back to find them reading the wikipedia page about the English Civil War,” Lovett says, rolling his eyes with unnecessary and hypocritical amount of disdain, Tommy feels, for someone who owns multiple physical copies of video game walkthroughs. 

If Lovett is there for Date Night he usually comes through to join them when they’re pouring the wine, and then they sit in Ronan’s apartment with not enough lamps on to see properly and talk about nonsense. Sometimes, out at dinner, Tommy will say, “We could get dessert to go?” and neither of them mention that they only ever do this when Lovett is waiting for them at home. 

There’s a ripple through the office - they’re too many people in too little space not to be able to pick up immediately on moods - and Tommy resigns himself to an afternoon of jokes about this, probably about his tragic mid-thirties single lifestyle. 

Lovett stands up decisively, Pundit leaping up around his legs at once. “Tommy, c’mon, you owe me lunch.” 

Pundit runs over to Tommy as soon as Lovett mentions his name, which is always gratifying, and he’s getting her lead, avoiding her skittering paws down the stairs out the office, before he realises, “Hey, no I don’t, you owe _me_ lunch and you said it was going to be a postmates at best.”

Lovett swings them onto the street, shrugs as he says, “Yeah, but this way gets us free of the will they won’t they, oh it’s jealousy, office bullshit, or whatever version of it was going to kick off.” He gives Tommy a look like he’s daring him to call him out on this act of kindness.

“I’m a big boy, I can take their jokes about my tragic mid-thirties single lifestyle,” Tommy says firmly. 

“You know, if you use the same phrase over and over it becomes way less convincing. Kind of banal. Just as a note.” 

“Noted, straight shooter,” Tommy says. He doesn’t even know where they’re walking, but it’s warm enough already that he doesn’t mind, and not so hot that Lovett will just stop suddenly like an old car or laptop; seized up by overheating. He doesn’t even really have to think about following Lovett, Pundit will do that just as automatically as he will. “It works better than the truth, anyway.” 

“Not that single?” Lovett asks, with another one of those looks that just makes it past the brim of his hat. “Not that tragic?” 

Tommy sighs. “God, do we have to get Into It? Not that kind of jealous, I guess.” He looks down at the sidewalk, at the glamorous Weho weeds growing through the cracks. “Not the kind of thing I want to get into in front of our fucking interns, anyway. Even like, Tanya.”

Having staff is the weirdest part of this whole very weird life. Probably. He should rate everything sometime. But sometimes he looks across the office at Jon and he is about to say something and then he remembers that there are five to nine other people in the room watching them, people who Tommy nominally pays, who rely on him for the dental, who are fifteen years younger than he is and really do not need to know about his sex life. 

Lovett says, “Well now you have to tell me, you know that, right, you knew that as soon as you said you didn’t want to say it in front of Tanya, that I would want to know right away.” He’s looking at Tommy like he’s got some kind of investment in Tommy’s answer.

“Too late now,” Tommy says. What’s he going to do, start minding now, _now_ , about Lovett’s inexorable creep into every single area of Tommy’s life. Into every once private corner a Lovett must fall, demanding ‘deets’ and shaking a diet coke in understanding, judgmental laughter. He tries out a sigh, but Lovett has already spotted whatever on his face always gives him away and makes the universal sign for ‘spill’ at him. 

Tommy wraps Pundit’s leash tighter around his hand and then lets it unspool again. He says, “I can live without a boyfriend or a wife, I mainly just get jealous of you not having to go out and pick up someone and explain to them that I just want-” he swallows, looks around even though they literally work opposite a strip club and everyone in West Hollywood considers him way too vanilla to be worth eavesdropping on. “You know. Not even to be tied to a headboard, although I wouldn’t say no. Just someone to put me under and tell me what I’m for.” 

The traffic drones, cicadas chirp, Pundit’s claws tap the pavement, Jon Lovett doesn’t say anything. Tommy takes a few breaths, tries to remember how it went the last time they talked about this. Any of this. Talking about sex with Lovett is a very wobbly tightrope between having to only vaguely allude to having physical needs and a deluge of oversharing. Not that Tommy ever feels like it’s too much. He... likes to know. Likes to have someone else that he doesn’t have to explain himself to, who gets it, never asks why on earth someone would want to give over power. “Subs club,” Lovett had said, exactly once. 

Tommy keeps walking, just about, until Lovett says, low and quiet, “Yeah, that... That’s rough.” Tommy turns to look at him and Lovett looks back, face open and sympathetic. 

“It’s fine,” Tommy says. 

Lovett says, “Please,” in his most withering tones. “Tommy. It really sucks. I know, remember? I actually know, not just like, oh that sounds like a problem I guess.” Tommy does remember Lovett in DC, sullen and habitually lowering his standards. He remembers the almost comical glow that Lovett came back from Ronan’s apartment with after that first time. 

“Yeah, well, leave me to my coping fictions, Jon,” he says, managing to pull himself back from snapping at Lovett. He said he wasn’t jealous, he has to stick with that. 

Lovett shakes his head at him, says, “Fine, god, whatever.” He turns his shoulders in on themselves, doesn’t really untuck until they’re in the sushi place, slowly unhunching over his phone, tapping away and half ignoring Tommy, but not in the bad way. Not the worst way, anyway. Just in the way that means that he’s not ready to give Tommy his attention back yet. He fusses with Pundit who has mostly fallen asleep under his chair once it became clear no one was going to share lunch. “Hey,” Lovett says eventually, looking at his screen rather than Tommy. “You know, I could... I could lend you Ronan, if you wanted.”

Tommy frowns at him. “I... What? Is this about Date Night?” 

Lovett pokes a piece of nigiri around his plate with one petulant chopstick. He says, “Not like that. Well. It could be like that. But if you really need someone to sit you down at their feet and take you under, Ronan can do that.” He looks up. “He’s very good at that.” 

Tommy feels his whole face go hot. He immediately wants to ask if Lovett is fucking with him, but Lovett isn’t. He knows. But god, he really wants to ask, because he can’t think of anything to say that isn’t so needy it’s just grotesque. So obvious. “Of course he is,” he says. His voice is all weird record scratches. “He’s very good at everything he wants to be.” 

“And you like him, you’d feel safe with him. In our place,” Lovett says, like he’s the one who has to be convincing Tommy that this would be a good idea. Like Tommy wouldn’t beg for the scraps of the luxurious satisfaction Lovett and Ronan have found in each other. “Look, you can just say no and we can try and move on. Probably.”

“I’m not saying no, I’m just surprised. I didn’t know you guys were, like... I didn’t know you did that,” Tommy says. There’s probably a word but he’s too old and square to know it. 

Lovett says, “We don’t... really. But, it’s happened. And it’s you, you and Ronan. I don’t feel like I’m, like, losing out. You’d be seeing a side of him that other people usually don’t, sure, but I’m not going to be jealous of that.”

There’s nothing else for it. “You’d... be okay with that?” Tommy says. “With your boyfriend, with Ronan domming me?” The words feel too large, and harsh, and wanting. All the things he tries not to be with them. 

“Thomas,” Lovett says, heavily underscored with ‘what the fuck’. “Please. Like I’d ask if I wasn't.” 

Tommy looks at him, really looks. There's a softness that Lovett doesn't usually let out in public unless it's directed at Pundit. “You don't have to do this, Lovett. Or Ronan.” 

Lovett laughs, goes to say something then laughs again. “We're not doing you a favor. Have you even seen yourself, Tommy, I swear to god.” 

Tommy has seen himself. That's at least half the problem. By the time he's explained what he wants, or more usually what he doesn't want, the moment has been kind of lost. He's not the level of good looking that's worth trouble. He shrugs. 

“Ronan has no problem with the way you look, trust me,” Lovett says. “Plus I think he'll be grateful for the opportunity to have someone more... eager to please.” He's smirking. “Easy.” 

“Who says I'm eager to please?” Tommy says, slightly defensive. He didn’t think it was _that_ obvious. 

Lovett laughs again. “I do. I say. Because I've met you. Also, if it's a scale of easy, I don't think there's anyone further down it than me.” 

“Why? Do you not want to?” Tommy asks, getting the question in before the door to Lovett's sexuality slams again. He’s pretty sure Lovett does but, wouldn’t you just go there, to that space where all the stupid extraneous stuff that he fucks himself up in the brain with falls away, where there’s nothing to do except be, and be useful. 

Lovett says, “Of course I want to. That’s why it’s difficult.” He picks at his food for a moment and Tommy lets him have the silence. “Ronan is... He’s really good. He makes it good. And he likes that I make him work for it.” 

Tommy swallows and tries to tell himself that none of this is hot. Or, at least that he shouldn’t be getting actively turned on by it on lunch, a couple of blocks away from their office. But then today is already very fucking strange, and Lovett is offering up his boyfriend for intimate acts of kink. And it is hot, just objectively, very hot. Tommy says, “Have you... Have you actually asked him?” and tries just to sit and breathe like a normal person would. 

“Yes,” Lovett says, a bit too quickly for Tommy, who says, “Really?” and gets a chopstick in the arm for it. “What, you wanna see the text message chain? I have! He says yes. Also, that you should call him. Talk it through.” 

Tommy doesn’t take Lovett’s cell from him because, trying to be like a normal person. “Okay, okay, but you made it sound suspicious. You did, you totally did.” 

Lovett breathes out and then knocks his knee against Tommy against the table, the way he does sometimes when he wants to say, remember we know each other too well. “Ronan wanted to know if you just want like, the kind of domming where you sit at his knee and like, maybe he ties your wrists up. Or if, you know, you also want the part where after that you blow him. Because. You could have that. If you wanted.”

Tommy’s entire brain just tells him to run. There’s no reasoning to it but that’s his only thought. Too much, just go. “I don’t think I could do that,” he says. His voice is all croaky. He’s very glad that everyone else in West Hollywood knows that the sushi here is crappy so that there’s no one here to see him fall all the way apart, knows that he is bright red, stumbling to get out one syllable words. 

Lovett tilts his head and Tommy has to cut him off before he says anything else that comes straight out of his guiltiest jerk off sessions. “It’s not that I don’t... Like. It’s Ronan. Obviously I would. I just...” He’d be thinking about what was missing too much to even get near subspace.

“Okay, Tommy, okay,” Lovett says, very soft. “We can talk about this another time. Or never ever again. Except we should probably talk about this again. For the health of our relationship.” He gives Tommy such a familiar look, a look that Tommy has seen a thousand time over so many years, the look that is, this isn’t ironic, despite the tone and my better wishes. 

“I’ll call Ronan,” Tommy says before the talking becomes talking himself out of it. “Then I guess we can, whatever, check in with our emotions. Chicken soup our souls.” He punts the look back at Lovett who obediently laughs at the not joke and Tommy’s shoulders unclench a fraction. They can still be normal. They can still do this. “I know, I need a more up to date reference. I’ll work on it. I just don’t want to like, fuck us up, either. I can get laid. I only have one other podcast cohost called Jon, and you bring kind of different things to the table.” He can’t think of a thing that he’d put over having a Jon Lovett in his life. 

“Again, do you think I’d ask if I thought that was a possibility?” Lovett says. “I’m offended that you don’t think I’m a planner, Tommy. I-” He stops in that way that usually means he’s already laughing at his own punchline, but he doesn’t. “I really think we can do this. I want you to do this, actually. I like this solution.” 

“Don’t tell me, you have a math analogy for this,” Tommy says. Lovett, inevitably, does.

*

There’s a fob and a code to get from the lobby of Ronan’s building to his apartment, a fob that Tommy’s had for years and a code that he’s put in dozens of times. Except, he can’t find the fob in his bag or the code in his memory, and he’s starting to think he’s just going to get trapped in the elevator and thrown out by the doorman. 

Tommy’s always a little bit nervous before Date Night, stupid, so stupid, but unshakeable, like he used to be sometimes when he came to LA before the move, like somehow Jon and Lovett were people he needed to impress. He doesn’t need to impress Ronan, who sat with Tommy on his State Department desk at 1am to eat dinner bought out of a vending machine, and cries at video game endscenes, and once snorted wine out of his nose laughing at one of Lovett’s jokes. 

He really wants to, though. Always has. 

It's much worse now he’s heard what Ronan sounds like when, god, when he thinks Tommy’s done well. They'd talked for an hour on the phone; Tommy lapping his apartment over and over, Ronan straightforward as ever, clear headed in a way that Tommy tried to match. Easier on the phone, for sure. And then Ronan had said, “It was good that you asked Lovett about that. That must have been hard. You did good,” and Tommy’s head had stopped being clear because that was a voice. The voice. He’d said, _right_ , or, _yeah totally_ , or something else generic and dazed, and Ronan had laughed and said, “Sorry, I just wanted to test the waters. See if you were here for what I’m putting down and all that.” Tommy hadn’t answered, couldn’t answer, mouth dry as he paced his own kitchen, back and forth and back again. Until Ronan had said, “Tell me, Tommy,” low and completely undeniable. 

He’d said, “I’m here for it,” and they’d both been quiet for a while. 

Tommy wanted to be cooler, this time around. Ronan had said, “Good, because this is pretty representative of what I’m like. When I top,” and Tommy had gone bright red just at that, just standing alone in the middle of his own floor. A blush and a hard on just from some extrapolation.

Cooler, that was the plan, and less really turned on, because he negotiated kink, no sex, except that he’s already flustered and he hasn't even seen Ronan yet. 

He says, “Get your damn game face on, Vietor,” which he used to do sometimes before going to the press pool or on camera. This is dumb. He’s an adult. He does some headspace approved breathing, and remembers the elevator code. He still has to knock to get into the apartment, but that’s not so bad, it means that Ronan opens the door to him and it’s natural to hug him, natural to let Ronan usher him in with a hand on the small of his back. Tommy wants to just close his eyes and let Ronan guide him everywhere. He remembers, suddenly, the last time they went to a museum together and Ronan had toured him around, telling Tommy what to pay attention to, what he’d find most interesting. Tommy had really fucking loved it. 

Tommy says, “Hi, Ronan. Hey. Hi.” He scuffs off his shoes, not that Ronan insists but he likes to be polite, puts his bag down next to them, lines them up. When he looks up from that, Ronan is making a face, all scrunched up, and he says, “I don’t know if I should be glad that you’re nervous too, but, I kind of am.”

Ronan’s dressed down, polo shirt and slacks - Tommy can hear Lovett laughing at both of them in his head - and shifting foot to foot, he could almost be unassuming. “Glad or nervous?” Tommy asks, and that makes Ronan laugh. “Both, Tommy. Totally both. Tote both.” 

“Lame rhyme but I’ll allow it,” Tommy says, taking a step towards Ronan, putting his hands in his pockets, not kissing him. “Because of how you’re nervous. I forgot the fucking keycode.” 

Ronan makes a fake disappointed noise. “It’s the unlock code from-”

“That is the least helpful reminder for everyone who isn’t you or Lovett, as I’ve told you like, a hundred times,” Tommy says, and they both do the burst of relieved laughter that isn’t at any joke.

Ronan grins at him, one of those smiles that transforms his face into something billboard worthy, and says, “I thought maybe we could break with another Date Night tradition and order in. I thought, maybe, anticipation isn’t always... great for you.” 

“I get too in my head,” Tommy agrees, warm with gratitude. This is what he hates to get into, this is why he said yes to trying this with Ronan, even though he knows it complicates three already complicated lives. Ronan likes to understand people, and has always got Tommy with easy delight. He’s never made assumptions that Tommy has to try and dispel without sounding offended or seeming rude. “In the bad way. So. Good call.”

“Cool,” Ronan says. “Cool. I’m going to order something we’ll both like, and then you’re going to come eat it with me on the sofa, and tell me something interesting, and when I’m ready, you’re going to sit on the cushion I’m going to put on the floor beforehand, and you’re going to keep talking until you’re ready.” 

Tommy swallows. “Ready for what?” he asks. Ronan likes it when he asks questions. 

“Ready to be quiet for me,” Ronan says softly. It’s all Tommy can do to nod at that. He nods again, for good measure. “You can tell me if there’s something you don’t want, but otherwise I’m going to assume that you want me calling the shots, okay?”

“Okay,” Tommy says. They’re starting with the simple stuff, the thing that Tommy finds easiest and finds his mind drifting to the most often. Somehow Lovett could pinpoint that somehow so Tommy didn’t even have to ask. Just being put under and staying there for a while.

Ronan smiles at him again, softer this time, and says, “Okay then, you put your bag in the spare room, I’m going to get you a very large glass of water.” 

“You’re really thoughtful,” Tommy says, and that’s when he goes red, fantastic. “The water is emblematic, before you object. Of your general thoughtfulness.” 

Ronan laughs at him, but he looks pleased, so Tommy feels okay with leaving to put his stuff in the tiny spare room that he’s wedged himself into on countless occasions. Lovett’s right, he does feel safe here. He knows where everything goes. 

There is a glass of water waiting for him that Ronan watches him drink. There’s also a cushion on the floor that Tommy can’t really look directly at, but puts himself above on the sofa. “I’ve ordered from that place with the dumplings we liked,” Ronan says, settling himself on the sofa next to Tommy. “Remember? It had a fountain that was impossible to wait next to and Lovett texted us a lot of jokes about watersports that I don’t even want to think about the depth and range of.”

“I remember,” Tommy says. It’s a stupid thing to ask, really, he remembers all the nights he’s spent here better than he remembers most of Chicago, especially after Jon left. If this works, he’s going to have to tell Jon. He texts Lovett about this, because that’s the best way to get out the jitters he knows, and Lovett replies at once like maybe he’d been waiting. 

_Don’t worry about things you don’t even have to worry about yet. Or maybe ever. That’s not conducive to date night._

_Stop._

_It._

Tommy smiles at the screen, opens up the group chat that he has with the two of them to find _Ronan Farrow is typing,_ looks up and watches Ronan tap out his message, fast and serious faced like he always is when he’s typing on his phone, even when it’s just a stupid meme that he’s forwarding. It’s a round up of the night so far for Lovett, including that Tommy called Ronan thoughtful, and Lovett replies that _Ronan shouldn’t let Tommy on twitter, because it gets him all hot under the collar, wait, no, something less fun._

Tommy misses him so much. He has no idea how Ronan does it. 

They do this until the food arrives, a back and forth between them and sometimes Lovett on their phones. Ronan’s ordered everything that Tommy liked, which makes Tommy want to tell him again how thoughtful he is, but instead he just says thank you way too many times. There are a few pieces of food left when Ronan says, “Okay, Tommy, I think you’re ready to sit for me.” 

“Oh,” Tommy says. He does feel good, pleasantly full and settled, has just made Ronan laugh again. “Okay.”

Ronan turns to look at him fully. “Okay is a little weak for me. I want you to say things properly from now on. Full sentences.” His voice is so steady. It makes Tommy think, inexplicably, of church.

“You’re right, I’m ready, and I want to,” he says. Ronan beams at him and puts his hand on Tommy’s shoulder, and it’s so easy to slide down to his knees. He looks back up at Ronan, and breathes out. This is not a familiar angle, but it’s a familiar feeling, and a very familiar face. He’s always better for seeing Ronan, always happy to see his stupidly handsome face. And god knows it’s always so good to get on his knees for someone who he is sure of, who categorically knows what they’re doing. 

He actually feels his shoulders drop, like a goddamn cliche. 

Ronan says, “That’s, holy shit, Tommy, that’s amazing.” He picks up a vegetable chip and holds it out. “Can I?” he asks. Tommy nods, leans forward and takes a bite, slightly performative because that’s what he’s used to doing. There’s nothing wrong with showing off a little, even if he would usually be doing it to turn someone on. Ronan smiles at him, and eats the rest of the chip, keeps smiling as he feeds Tommy the rest of their food, piece by piece, like it’s as good for him to be here, that this level of intimacy is good for him too. 

And it’s Ronan, so Tommy can ask. “Is this... I like this so much. Do you?” 

Ronan says, “Oh, good, Tommy. Very good. And yes, actually, I’ve been looking forward to this all day.” 

Tommy sighs and it comes out slow, somehow, and he has to duck his head a second. 

Ronan’s hand tightens slightly on his shoulder. “You going down, babe?” 

“Just a bit,” Tommy says, swallowing down an apology. Ronan sounds happy. Ronan has lots of cool shit that happens in his life and he’s been looking forward to this all day. 

Ronan strokes over his shoulders, fingers brushing under Tommy’s collar for a moment. “You can keep going. This is what I’ve been thinking about all day. All week, really. All... I don’t even know. But I know it was this, watching your eyes go soft, hearing your breath go slow, making you feel so good that you let it all go for me.” 

“Jesus,” Tommy says involuntarily. He focuses on his hands, flexes his fingers to track the movement, and then looks up at Ronan again. “Sorry. Just. I was just thinking how much I liked to hear you say things like that, and then you said them again.” 

“Mind meld,” Ronan says with a nose scrunch smile, and brushes his finger against Tommy’s temple, then pulls his hand back into his lap. “Anyway, that’s nice to hear. Now, remember, you’re going to talk to me about the book you were tweeting about yesterday.” 

Tommy does, talks and talks until his voice starts to crack, which takes a while these days. It’s his first clue that he’s been talking a while, everything treacly in time and movement, every plane.

Ronan gets him more water because they’d agreed to no alcohol and it feels good in the way things start to when he’s drifting a little, that his body only needs these very basic things to fully satisfy it. “I thought you might be ready to stop talking now. I’m going to read over some notes and maybe stroke your hair when the mood takes me. When the fancy strikes. You need to move off of your knees, you can sit however you like that’s comfortable, just not on your knees,” Ronan says, so Tommy shifts, looks up to check that Ronan is okay with how he’s put himself. 

Ronan pushes his fringe back and says, “Yes, that’s excellent. Nothing painful, babe, don’t forget.”

 

It had been one of the things that Lovett had out of Tommy when they’d been talking about where Tommy’s limits were. Bondage maybe, but pain no. “Is that exclusively sexual to you?” Lovett had asked and Tommy had muttered something affirmative and grateful. “It can be either, for me,” Lovett had said lightly. Tommy thinks, hopes, that his muttering had been even more grateful for that. Lovett is so good at making sure he never feels alone.

Tommy tips his head back and Ronan keeps stroking through his hair. “You look so lovely down there. Fantastic angle for you, great light for your eyes, all around lovely.” 

Tommy wouldn’t usually want to but he stays looking at Ronan, not really watching what he’s doing but keeping him in view, safe harbour. He hadn’t even noticed that he was getting uncomfortable on his knees, but he had. It’s good here, sat on some ridiculously expensive homeware, leaning against the sofa with its warm smell of leather. Ronan does run his fingers through Tommy’s hair and every time he does it Tommy finds another part of him relax, and in between his mind empties all the way out, until there’s nothing but Ronan and the light changing in the windows behind him. All he has to do is breathe and be, that’s what Ronan wants. 

And then it’s New York dark, and Ronan is leaning forwards him, cupping his cheek. “Hey there, Thomas.” His eyes are the brightest colour in the room.

“Hi,” Tommy says, blinking. He rolls his shoulders and they don’t crack for once. “Wow, shit, is it late?” 

Ronan says, “Not Jon Lovett late, don’t worry about it. I’m going to get you a blanket, hang out there a minute more.” 

It feels so strange to look at something else, to not have Ronan filling up his world, and Tommy almost wants to object but Ronan is back fast, wraps Tommy up in a heavy wool blanket and tugs him back up onto the sofa. “Honestly, this is one of my favourite parts, where you get all floopy and charmingly wide-eyed like someone at the start of a fish-out-of-water type movie,” he says. 

“Does that mean Lovett goes floopy?” Tommy asks before his brain can decide whether he should or not. 

Ronan pulls the blanket tighter around him, face all soft edged. “Very, very floopy. He gets clingy, too.” 

“Well, that’s not so surprising,” Tommy says. “Wait, asking about Lovett, is that, can I do that? I forgot.” Not talking about Lovett is not a state that comes easy to him. 

Ronan huffs out a laugh. “You’re allowed. And I wouldn’t be mad at you for getting blurred about stuff when you’re still kind of under. But, yeah, if you want to talk about Jon some, we can. He took everything off the table that’s not, you know, allowed on the table.” 

“I like talking about Jon,” Tommy says, listing slightly sideways. “Oh, man, sorry, it’s been kind of a while, I get giggly sometimes. It’s kind of like being high.” 

“I have very fond memories of high Tommy Vietor, you don’t have to apologise,” Ronan says. “I seem to recall that I should put you to bed before you pass out where you sit, but I think in this instance you should probably not be alone yet.”

Tommy makes an inadvertent grumpy noise. “You need a bigger guest bed,” he complains. “If you had a bigger guest bed you could be in it too.” 

“You’re so right, I didn’t think that through at all,” Ronan says amicably. Everything about him makes Tommy feel like the world is coming back better than when it went away, so he nuzzles at him briefly. It seems right in the moment. 

*

Tommy wakes up way later than he expects to, and to a lot fewer messages from Lovett than he would have expected if he’d really been able to think about the aftermath of last night, of anything past it. There is, in fact, just one in the group chat that says, _if Tommy needed company you could have just both slept in the master bedroom, assholes._

It is absolutely the level of insulting anger coating the actual caring that he expects from Lovett. 

_Thanks, darling_ he sends and adds a kissy face emoji. It’s only funny because it’s not true. 

Tommy wanders out as casually as he can. He didn’t pack anything that he feels like wearing today, so he keeps his pyjamas on. The clothes he wears at his mom’s house aren’t... right for this, and he does dress nicely for Date Night but he really didn’t want to put on a button down. He rubs at his neck, remembering the way that Ronan pushed his fingers into the collar of his shirt last night. Like Tommy’s skin was his, even hidden away. Like he’d love to unbutton Tommy but he wouldn’t rush it. 

Suddenly sweatpants seem like a less good idea. There had been a point last night where Tommy had considered jerking off but he hadn’t been hard even when Ronan had sent him to bed, and he had been feeling slow, and good. And then he’d fallen dead asleep for, like, ten hours. Now he’s just feeling good. 

Ronan is leaning against a counter in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee, sharp eyed in the way that means that this isn’t his first, even though he’s still also in his pyjamas. “Hey,” he says, studiously casual, eyes flicking away from Tommy. “Good morning.” 

Tommy leans himself next to Ronan, and takes the coffee out of his hands, steals a sip. They take it the same. “Are you going to ask if I slept well? Because I think you know I did. The day is in double digits already.” The sunlight is streaming in through the windows that Ronan fell in love with when this place was just a glass box with potential, and Tommy can bump shoulders and bare feet with him, and he feels really settled, down in his bones. It’s stupid for Ronan not to feel settled here too. It’s been too long since they resorted to the polite chitchat of their youth, and Tommy has no desire to walk them back to that. 

“Look,” Ronan says. “Hey. I feel like Jonathan really built me up into some kind of super-dom, and sure, it seemed to go well-”

“It was incredible,” Tommy interrupts, very quickly. What if Ronan’s been up for hours worrying about this. God. Ronan has been up for hours worrying about this.

“You were incredible,” Ronan says, with the softest earnest tone Tommy has ever had directed at him. In his life. Tommy doesn’t know what to say to that and Ronan doesn’t seem to have a follow up, so Tommy gives him his coffee back even though he’s very sure he needs it more than Ronan does right now. “I would be open to doing it again, if you liked it? You can stay in the bed and then Jon won’t shout at us, if that helps.”

“I’d like that, all of that,”Tommy says. “I feel so good this morning.” He thinks over the night before, over what Ronan likes, and says, “Do you want... I could tell you what I liked about it?” He and Ronan, Lovett too, they like to debrief, they like to have notes on shows and books and places they’ve eaten, go over things they’ve liked or not. Emily will yell at them about doing punditry on dinner, analysis on _every single fucking thing_. 

He turns his head and Ronan is grinning at him. “Yeah, Tommy. That would be awesome. In the old fashioned sense and the modern.” He bites his lip. “You going to get kind of blushy about it? I need to be prepared if there’s going to be blushing again.” 

“Get ready,” Tommy says. It’s not like he can stop it, even when he’s feeling this at ease. He ignores the part of his brain that’s trying to work out if this is flirting. Ronan is as bad as Lovett when it comes to trying to compliment Tommy to distraction.

Angling his body towards Ronan isn’t that hard, but he definitely feels more open, which is the idea. “I liked how you told me what we were going to do beforehand. I liked that you were, above me. That I felt smaller. Very cliche,” he adds, just to get it out of his head. “I liked it when you were touching me but it wasn’t like, the thing that I was there to do? I was there to kneel, and you wanted to touch me so you did.” 

“Would you like to be here for me to touch?” Ronan asks. He’s turned himself as well so that Tommy is talking into a space made just between their bodies. 

Tommy says, “I think so, but, it would be different. But. I’d like it, if that’s what you wanted. I like the connection, and, like, being touched when I’m under is...” He swallows. Ronan gives him back the coffee and he takes a grateful mouthful. “They’re always telling you to try and be present in your body, and that’s when it’s best. That’s when I feel good in there.” 

“Huh, you know, Jon’s never been able to put that into words,” Ronan murmurs. “I hope that’s how he feels.” 

Tommy nods. “Me too. It’s a good way to feel.” Lovett so rarely is at peace with his body, and Tommy gets that but also, it’s so stupid, when it’s Lovett’s body. 

“What if I wanted to just stand and look at you,” Ronan asks. “Take off your shirt and get you to stand over there for the whole of the golden hour.” He clears his throat like he didn’t mean for his voice to get all low and appealing. Tommy wants to know if that’s how he talks to Lovett when they do this. It must be. “Or have you sit where you were and stay very still while I touched your neck and the small of your back and everywhere vulnerable. Can we do that? I know it would be harder. The whole category of things you have to work a little more for, how about those?” 

Tommy does not just say _yes, yes please, god, please_ which he might have to brag to someone - well, to Lovett - about. “If we are going to keep doing this, I don’t mind doing harder things, with you.” It’s been so long since he had something to build with someone, and now he has so much being offered to him that it’s hard to feel like he deserves it. He rolls ideas over in his head, weighing things up as best he can when he just wants to promise anything and everything. But Ronan wouldn’t like that. He says, “I don’t really, ugh, if I was just standing there, you wouldn’t be ignoring me, right? I don’t like being, um, left.” 

“Neither does Jon,” Ronan says, thank god, rather than ‘yes Tommy we all know that’. “Neither do I, that’s not what I enjoy. I enjoy you being here for me, I want to luxuriate in that, if you’re trying for me, I want to see that. It’s not like I get to do this all the time and I miss it.” There’s a note in his voice that the ache in Tommy’s chest recognises as kin. “I don’t want to miss out on any single thing that crosses your faces.” 

There’s nothing Tommy can do about the way that Ronan grouping him and Lovett makes him feel except not mention it. “You miss it, like, you miss getting to top?” he asks instead. His voice shakes slightly on the last word like he’s new to this or something.

Ronan’s whole face changes, brighter and gentler at once. “It’s not just you. Yeah, I miss it. We’re doing long distance and that’s like, the least inconvenient part of our lives. But I don’t have to tell you that,” he says, sweeping Tommy back into his narrative in the way that he does. “But I guess I have to tell you how much I liked having you here, making you feel good, watching you do exactly what I wanted and knowing that it was exactly what you wanted. I don’t have to... worry. That I’m being too much.” 

“That’s my line,” Tommy says. He thinks he might have said that verbatim more than once. They’re still standing close, hip to hip against the counter, and he can see the tiny details of Ronan’s face, the pale hair at the edges of his eyebrow and the dip in his upper lip, and he knows them all, knows Ronan. But this feels so new. It’s not that they haven’t talked about their sex lives in the general, in the abstract and in a group, but this feels way further from their norm than putting himself at Ronan’s feet did. 

Thinking about it, the two of them probably talk about sex the least out of all of the combinations of his friendship group, if that’s what he can call the ever increasingly enmeshed Favreau Lovett Farrow Vietors. 

Ronan takes a breath, glances away. “Can I tell Jon what we did last night?” he asks when he looks back. 

Tommy says, “Yes? In a way that’s different to how he already knows?” They planned it so much beforehand that Tommy started to get half sick of it. Lovett knows what they were going to do.

“In the way where I really tell him, tell him about how good you were. What you looked like. To me.” There’s something in Ronan’s voice that suggests that he’s going to tell this story differently to how Tommy did, that there’s something... beautiful there to tell. 

Tommy says, “Yes.” Ronan tilts his head, waits for Tommy to fill the silence. Such an interviewer move. “It wouldn’t be right, otherwise.”

“There’s no obligation here, I can not tell him if you prefer. It’s not like we’re keeping secrets,” Ronan says. Tommy doesn’t flinch away at that. It’s not technically a secret, he’s being very obvious about how much this means to him. How much Ronan means to him. There are just a couple of things that he’s keeping quieter about for everyone’s safety. It’s not going to get out of hand.

Tommy says, “I know, but it still wouldn’t feel right. He wants to know, you want to tell him.” Tommy kind of wants Lovett to know too, but that is one of the things he’s keeping out of the way. It marks the way to more dangerous territory. “If it were someone who wasn’t Lovett maybe my answer would be different but I don’t mind him knowing about it. We already know all the underbelly stuff.” It would be way too revealing if it wasn’t Lovett, really. Embarrassing, even. “And he’s been, he gave me you. He can get some juicy details in return, like that’s any kind of recompense.” 

Ronan rolls his eyes. “Yeah, no one ever wants to hear about pretty subs going under, no one enjoys that, Tommy.” 

“I think I’m kind of niche porn,” Tommy says which makes Ronan fully lean back with laughter, put his hand on the countertop to steady himself. “Shut up.”

Ronan actually lifts his glasses to wipe his eyes. “Sure, okay, whatever you say. Come on, come buy me good bagels and instagram them to piss Jon off.”

“Just like that, huh?” Tommy says. It feels right to him but he wants to hear Ronan say it.

Ronan puts his arm around Tommy’s shoulder. “Just like that, Tommy Vietor.”

*

LA does not give a fuck about your queer drama when it happens before nine am, but Tommy thinks that Jon is being pretty loud in this gym. “You’re sleeping with Ronan?” Jon says. “You’re sleeping with Ronan and you said, ‘just like that’ about it?” 

“Not sleeping with,” Tommy says for about the sixth time. “He’s topping me. We do sleep afterwards. It’s not sex. But it’s still a relationship thing, I guess. But not like, a thing. I don’t know, it’s casual.” 

Jon takes a swig from his water bottle and sighs. He’s sighed a bunch already. “Casual. With Ronan. Our Ronan Farrow. Ronan who you are like, smitten with.” Tommy wishes that there was a way to take back what you say in the dark of a bar after one too many beers before dinner. Some kind of best friend off the record. Not that ‘off the record’ is anything above fifty percent pure bullshit. Something that actually works.

“That’s not, hey, everyone’s a bit in love with Ronan,” Tommy tries.

Jon stares at him and then says, “Oh, no way, you totally don’t remember or you wouldn’t have said it. That is exactly what you said to me when I was like, ‘hey Tommy if we’re starting a business with Lovett are you going to be cool with that, I know you have complicated feelings about him?’ Oh, don’t worry Favreau, everyone is a bit in love with Lovett.”

Tommy for sure would have said something else if he’d remembered that. Banal and less convincing, yet again. He thinks about the way Ronan sounded when Lovett called him, wandering through the apartment that looks like the two of them, the way they are everything each other need. Tommy’s been looking in for years now, and it’s been a wonderful thing to watch grow. He had learned to be careful with how he felt about Lovett, which turned out to be very good practice for how he’s ended up feeling about Ronan, and he’s not going to wreck anything just because they’re even kinder and stupider than he knew.

“This isn’t going to change anything,” he says. 

*

Nothing changes, exactly, Lovett does call Tommy ‘like very mainstream porn’ in a pod livestream one time and they both choke laughing while Jon looks on bemused. There was a part of Tommy that thought maybe he would just want to do it once, get it out of his system, top up whatever meter gets low. That they would go on just like before. And nothing changes, except that sometimes Ronan messages him to ask him about Date Night and it feels like every cell in Tommy’s body strains towards New York. 

Nothing changes except it becomes a thing. A thing that they do. Like, it’s just, assumed that they’ll make time and make space for it. 

The first time Tommy's in New York with Lovett, Lovett goes to stay at his sister’s place for a night and Ronan takes Tommy out to a tasting menu night and then makes him sit cross legged on the floor and count breaths. Lovett comes back the next day with retaliatory bagels from the “even better place downtown,” and then snatches the bag away from Ronan across the kitchen island. 

Tommy leans easily over and takes them, goes to get the cream cheese out the fridge. He always makes breakfast after Date Night. It had been part of their rituals before and now it helps him keep in that gentler, cleaner mindset for longer, doing simple tasks for Ronan. 

“See, Tommy knows how to be well behaved, ” Ronan says, and then laughs so hard when Lovett says, “Oh _does_ he,” that Tommy turns back around to see Lovett doing the most incredible leer in his direction. 

“He does,” Ronan says, looking at Tommy. Tommy thinks he might look kind of proud, which makes him feel great, which makes him feel squirmy. He goes back to the simpler interface of bagel and breadknife, knowing that he’s gone red. 

He hears Lovett come around to the kitchen side, hears Ronan laugh again, a quieter, tender thing. Lovett says, “Well, he wants to make you happy, which is almost a bribe, really.” 

Out of the corner of his eye Tommy can see them kissing, Ronan up against the counter, hand on Lovett’s waist. They do proper hello kissing when he’s around, which he’s weirdly proud of, too. That helps the slight ache of it. 

Lovett turns but doesn’t move out of Ronan’s hold. “I love that we’re getting the full Tommy Vietor boyfriend experience, don’t give me that look, how long have I known you. You’re a breakfast maker.” 

Tommy doesn’t think that wanting to do nice things for your partner deserves that tone, even if he does tend to... try kind of hard.

Lovett sighs and makes a demanding gesture. “Gimme,” he says. “Tommy, don’t you dare withhold carbs from me, you monster. Tommy, please, they smell so good.” 

Tommy, who had been considering holding the plate above his head for kicks, hands it over. Lovett gives it to Ronan and holds out his hand for another. 

“See, you’re just a romantic at heart,” Tommy tells him, picking up a three day old argument. “Bread product based gestures of love.” He hands Lovett a bagel. 

Lovett leans back into Ronan. “I didn’t say I wasn’t. I just said I wasn’t Tommy ‘let me get my guitar and play you something earnest’ Vietor. I said I wasn’t a person who buys flowers. You’re misrepresenting my position through the use of generalisation.”

“For someone who makes as many lawyer jokes as you do...” Ronan says, kissing Lovett’s temple. 

“Hey now, that sounds like Senator talk, not lawyer talk, don’t be rude,” Tommy says and gets two very offended grimaces shot at him. 

Usually they would move to eat, sit somewhere, but this morning they stay in the tiny kitchen area, crowded close. The sunlight washes through the apartment and normally Tommy would want to go and get dressed, get the day started, but he considers it just once and dismisses it completely. He’s pretty comfortable. He stretches out, leans back against the wall with lazy satisfaction.

Lovett watches him. “Anything you want to do in the city before we head back?” he asks. “We could try and catch up with Sam. Or do something nominally Pod related that we can tell the office about when we get home?”

“Tommy wants to finish his book,” Ronan says. He’s always touching Lovett when Lovett is here, all casual ownership, and right now he has one hand firmly around Lovett’s hip in a way that Tommy can’t stop looking at. “The one for next week’s Pod Save the World even though he has ages.”

“You have to write your own book,” Lovett says. “Don’t bring deadlines into this, Ronan.” He smiles back at Ronan, kisses his neck. “You finish your chapter, I edit the last one you send over, Tommy reads his own depressing war book? We can be all stages of the sausage getting made. Neat and furthermore, neat.”

Ronan says, “What a beautiful team for literacy.” 

It’s a good day, it makes Tommy’s mood stay light all the way back to LA, surviving LAX and the fucking traffic and even the moment when his apartment is dark and silent when he opens the door, because he’s reading back through Ronan’s endless supply of memes chat as he does it, distracted and laughing to himself. 

It's not just a New York thing. Ronan messages Tommy periodically about the rules, which bleeds into the group chat with Lovett. Tommy is glad every day that he told Favs all about the situation, because Lovett says a lot of things that could have given him the wrong idea. Lovett has ideas, sometimes, or will remind Ronan of things that they’ve done in the past that he thinks Tommy might like. It all feels giddily conspiratorial, like when they were planning Lovett’s surprise party. 

Plus, Lovett’s ideas, the plans they come up with, even the things that Ronan will just invent on the fly, are incredible. Ronan arrives at Tommy’s apartment one time, picks out an outfit for him, and tell him that he can only speak when spoken to all evening. Tommy sometimes has to work to go under and sometimes just drifts right there with the brush of Ronan’s hand on the back of his neck, and it’s so fucking good he can hardly believe it’s happening to him. He’s never been easy, whatever Lovett might have assumed, even when it has been this much fun. But it’s Ronan and it’s Lovett, they hold to the truth above all else. They go over how well he’s done, and Tommy believes them, curled up to Ronan as he quietly narrates the evening to Lovett over the phone or at breakfast. 

 

There's been two months for talking casually to become everyday, something they talk about when they're hanging out after work, so when Lovett asks, “Hey, so, why didn’t you call me after, the other night?” it doesn’t occur to Tommy to lie until it’s too late. Until he’s said, “We usually call from the bed and I was in the spare room.” 

Lovett shoos Pundit from his sofa and moves closer to Tommy. “I know that,” he says. 

Tommy isn’t sure but he thinks they automatically sit closer these days. He knows that they all sit piled together when they’re in New York, pretending that they’re going to do work. It wasn’t like they had any kind of personal space before, but now it feels more than just well worn familiarity. So maybe everything isn’t exactly the same. 

Lovett juts his chin out. “ _Why_ weren’t you in the bed? What happened?”

Tommy closes his eyes and just for a second he considers lying. He can lie to Lovett, to Jon too, if he needs to, or sometimes just to check that he still can. That it still works. But what would be the point. Just because it’s been mostly easy so far doesn’t mean that they can’t talk about when things Get Weird. “I got hard,” he says, looking down at his hands. “So I had to go jerk off. And then I fell asleep.”

Lovett blinks. “Huh,” he says. He pulls his legs up onto the sofa to cross in front of him, because god forbid he just sit. “Tommy. Do you want to know something?” 

“If it’s that you get hard about subbing, it’s fine, I know, I’m not like, ashamed,” Tommy says. “It’s kink, I’m into it.” 

Lovett, inevitably, gives his knee a proud little pat anyway. “Good for you. Anyway. This thing is much more interesting. You know when you first started talking about this, when we were doing the whole like, there is a conversation to be had about this running thing with ‘jealousy’? Not the boring heteronormative one everyone is having, but still something there you were feeling. That you did want. Yeah, so I did the thing where I had a different framing for what you were going to say, in my head. I’d been having all these other conversations and I kind of forgot that you hadn’t been having them too. I knew what I was - Ronan was - hoping for. So I thought you were going to suggest a threeway.”

“Why are we always having these conversations in front of your dog?” Tommy says helplessly. His brain feels like a tiled room in which someone - Lovett- has dropped a large metal object - the word threeway - and the whole space is full of nothing echo and reverberation. 

Lovett ducks his head and Tommy can’t see his eyes anymore under the brim of his hat. He’s knocked stupid caps off Lovett’s head before but he doesn’t want to do that now. He wants to lift Lovett’s head up by the chin, as gently as he can, so that Lovett has to look at him but doesn’t feel forced. Lovett has a very expressive face, and deep eyes, and even the way the crinkles around them form can tell Tommy something about what he’s thinking. Plus he likes to look at him. So this sucks. 

“Jon,” he says. As gently as he can. 

“It’s the risk you take when you have a dog, she’s been in the room for worse. It’s the staring that gets you, really. She doesn’t understand the words,” Lovett says. 

Tommy doesn’t even try looking across at Pundit, who is on her chair and almost definitely sulking by now, because he’ll get distracted and he has some very important questions. “What conversations were you having? Not the ones that have traumatised Pundit’s delicate ears. The ones that made you think I was going to ask for a threeway.”

“Ronan and I talk about you as foreplay, sometimes,” Lovett says, very fast. “I guess ‘talked’ would be more accurate. Before we started doing this. I don’t even know how it started, I think Ronan wanted to know if I knew if you’d ever sucked dick and things kind of expanded from there. Then there was Date Night, and the way you look at Ronan sometimes, but that’s not really conclusive because everyone _looks_ at Ronan sometimes, even the actually straight ones.” 

Tommy didn’t think he had been doing any kind of looking where Lovett could see, which is concerning for a number of reasons. “I didn’t know I was doing that,” he says. “Sorry.” 

“I'm the one admitting to crossing some boundaries, what are you even doing,” Lovett says. “What I wanted to say was, if you wanted to jerk off in our bed, that would be okay. If, say, you wanted to do stuff with Ronan that is designed to get you hard, that would be okay too.” He catches one hand in the other like it had got away from him in its gesticulation. “I don’t know why I’m doing this like I’m some kind of broker. We should call Ronan.” 

Tommy thinks very carefully about the things that prompt Lovett to make himself smaller. He thinks about the way that Lovett looked at him, those weeks ago on a grubby sidewalk, like Tommy was about to give him the solution to a puzzle, the key to buried treasure. 

“Can I talk to you about this first,” he says, and lowers his head so that he’s in Lovett’s eyeline no matter what. “Because, I only want to do that kind of thing if you’re going to be there too. I don’t need to talk to Ronan about it right now, I need to talk to _you_.” 

Lovett pulls back and the sofa makes the awkward creaking noise it’s developed recently because Emily is always standing on it and the dogs sit on the back of it and Lovett keeps trying to fix it himself. Lovett puffs out a little “Of fucking course.” He looks genuinely confused when he says,“You said no when I brought up blowing Ronan, and I figured maybe you just needed to get comfortable first. And you seem, you seem really comfortable now.” 

Tommy stays very still, wants to see where this one ends up and it’s hard not to accidentally push Lovett off topic, off piste conversationalist that he is. 

Lovett says, “Ronan sent me, god, a picture of you asleep at his desk, and you were wearing his dumb dressing gown. You looked more comfortable than in some places you’ve lived.” 

“Yes?” Tommy says, trying desperately to put all of this together. Ronan sends Lovett pictures constantly, it turns out - he calls it his “Mila Kunis quirk” which is apparently a movie reference that he refuses to explain and is frustratingly ungooglable - and Tommy has ended up in a lot of them. . Sometimes Ronan puts a picture of Tommy in the group chat and Tommy will look at it later just to relive how happy he felt right then. “I am comfortable there. And here. With both of you.” It’s always been good when it’s the three of them, Lovett talking too fast for anyone else, letting Tommy and Ronan talk things into the ground, endless rounds of fond debate. Them and Pundit on one sofa to watch movies that they’ve all seen before and want to talk over, or Tommy and Pundit in the easy chair while Ronan and Lovett play something competitive on the xbox. 

Lovett says, “So then why do you need me there?” in tones of pure and very irritating confusion. 

“I want you there because I want you,” Tommy snaps. “I had to jerk off because Ronan was detailing how he was going to tell you how hard I’d worked, and I don’t know how I didn’t just come in my pants.”

Lovett opens his mouth but there’s no sound, his mouth just hangs open like a cartoon. He quirks his head back and resets, leans back in again. “I did _not_ see that option,” he says, and Tommy starts to laugh. “Like, I thought I had really considered all of the permutations. You being weird about boundaries because you wanted to have sex with me did not even enter the process. I feel like I should blame a lot of childhood trauma and the use of the phrase ‘punching above his weight’ by the gay community of DC.” He fixes Tommy with a glare. “Also you, what the fuck, you don’t want to have sex with me, I know every single thing about you. I’ve worked very hard to annoy every last drop of privacy out of you and Favreau, how have you been hiding that?”

“In your defence, I’ve been working extremely hard at it,” Tommy says. “You know, it’s not very cool to want to have sex with your best friend who has an awesome long term boyfriend. Or his boyfriend. Tragically unhip.”

“Oh my god,” Lovett says. “You dork.” He stares at Tommy again. “You want me. Not just Ronan. Okay.” 

Tommy can’t stop looking at his dark, dark eyes. He says, “What, you’re not going to argue that one out with me?” He can see that Lovett believes him, but it is very unlikely that Lovett is just going to let this one go.

Lovett smiles, small and real, one of the ones that seems like a rare collectable item that Tommy should be putting in an album. “Tommy, I am sure that I will find plenty of ways to work this into plenty of arguments in the future, but I have questions and requests for clarification right now, and it’s really hard to get properly combative when I’m feeling this rush of self satisfaction. I hope being into someone you see every single fucking day has been as much of a torment for you as it has been for me.”

Tommy thinks, _oh, I should kiss him_ and then, _oh fuck, I should not,_ and whatever that makes his face do makes Lovett laugh at him. Tommy shakes his head, tries to look disapproving. It fails before he can really even settle on an expression. “Look, you have a boyfriend, I can’t just. I’ve not done this before, but I don’t think I just get to kiss you, however much you’ve talked about me in bed. Right?”

Lovett says, “I was totally right, we should have called Ronan, he’s going to be so pissed that he missed this whole farce. And then I could ask him what the fuck the logistics of this are.” 

“Should I call and open with the word threeway?” Tommy says, letting himself giggle the way he’s been holding back. “Because that really got me in the right brainspace for complete fucking nonsense. We might be able to get some good confused noises out of him before he works it out and starts organising us.” 

“Don’t pretend you’re not all about that, or that you’re not into it. You practically came on the spot when he gave us country by country itineraries for Europe,” Lovett says, waving an accusatory finger. 

Tommy feels breathless with the rightness of it, like he’s been running away from this for so long he had no idea how natural it would be to stop. That this is where the jokes have always wanted to land. 

Lovett stills, which always means he’s being serious. “Ronan’s going to say yes, you know. To the kissing. To all of this. Even if we hadn’t talked about it, I’d know that. I like that you want to get his permission first though, it’s very Victorian.”

“I’m just trying to be a good guy here, but hey, if you’re getting some kind of kink hit from it, that’s a side benefit I’m okay with,” Tommy says. 

“Are _you_ getting some kind of kink hit from it?” Lovett asks. “Oh my god. If you’re saying yes to -”

“- please, I will give you money not to say threeway again,” Tommy says. It sounds so sordid. “Yes. It looks like I’m saying yes. Not looks like, like I don’t know if I want to have to have sex with you. I worked that out years ago. Just, it looks like I’m suggesting calling your boyfriend to see if he’s amenable to group sex. That’s what my Tuesdays look like in this timeline.” 

Lovett says, “Two things. Okay, no, three things, no, wait, I’m not going to stoop to the ‘This is Trump’s America’ joke. No, three, because you interrupted me before I could say how you should totally ask Ronan for his permission to have me. Very hot. Two, does three people count as group sex? Also, we’re just going for this? You don’t want to talk it out first? Because that seems extremely unlike you.”

Tommy is stupidly, hideously blindsided by fondness in every hour of his life that he spends with Lovett. Which is almost all of his hours. “Can we talk it out when Ronan is here?” he asks. Maybe the prospect of getting what he wants really is bad for his morals, because he can’t bring himself to have it all out now, before he’s even gotten a kiss. Before he gets to hear Ronan say that he wants Tommy. He hopes, he really hopes, that they feel at least part way about him the way he feels about them, but hoping doesn’t come without fear, these days, and he doesn’t want to be scared right now. Tommy hmms for a second. “You know, we’ve got time the middle of this week if Ronan wanted to organise himself out here. I’ve recorded my Pod Save the World interview already. We could work it out in person. Start, whatever, phase two: this one has orgasms and direct input from Jon Lovett.” 

There’s a beat where he has to brainstorm six ways to pull back from that, from the naked eagerness of it, but Lovett moves all at once, getting out his phone, and there’s hardly any time before Tommy hears the small tinny, “hey you,” that Ronan always uses with Lovett. 

“Remember that game, what would Tommy do if I just kissed him? That we used to speculate on?” Lovett says. “Yeah. Am I allowed to play it out tonight? Tommy, tell him you’re a willing participant.” He holds the phone to Tommy’s mouth. 

“Very willing,” Tommy says. “Turns out I thought threeways were one of the things Lovett had taken off the table but he thought he couldn’t put them on. How about you?” 

He hears Ronan laugh his dorkiest laugh. “I had some suspicions, Tommy, mainly linked to how easy both of you were as soon as I mentioned the other one. I’ve been cheating my way to getting you both all hot and bothered. I’ll have to argue out the ethics of that sometime in my head.” 

“How do the two of you ever even scene?” Lovett says before Tommy can begin his response to that. “This would be a great opportunity for me to shut Tommy up with some making out, babe. Can I?”

“You can kiss him,” Ronan says, Tommy’s very favourite voice out in full force. “Make it good for me, baby.” 

Lovett ostentatiously puts Ronan on speaker and puts his cell down on the sofa back next to them. “You up to the challenge, Thomas?”

“He was totally talking to you,” Tommy says, and he knows he has to keep talking so that Lovett can cut him off with a kiss but he has no idea what words to make, and less what actually come out of his mouth when Lovett leans in and kisses him firmly. He definitely knows the noise he makes, it’s the one that means _please_. 

Lovett says, “Holy _shit_ ,” into Tommy’s mouth, not moving away at all, it’s almost uncomfortable and probably incomprehensible to the layperson. 

“These are some quality noises, but now I’m regretting not demanding facetime,” Ronan’s voice says, cutting through the quiet. Pundit yips in confusion at hearing but not seeing him, and Lovett tips himself, laughing, onto Tommy’s chest. “There we are, there’s your farce.” 

Ronan does demand explanation, and they’re allowed to kiss after each section has been covered, usually while he laughs at them. Lovett stays sprawled on top of Tommy, half in his lap which means Tommy gets to run his hands over Lovett’s back and shoulders like he keeps wanting to at work, while Ronan tells Tommy about the things that he and Lovett have discussed, “all the what ifs in the world, Tommy,” and Tommy makes very stupid noises because turns out he can’t be loud enough for Ronan’s satisfaction without going very very pornographically over the top. So far he is the only one who seems to care. 

“Here are the rules,” Ronan says and Lovett says, “Is this a very special gift to Tommy? He’s the new shiny-” 

There’s a lot to be said about the ‘cutting off with a kiss’ method. 

Ronan laughs and starts up again. “You can make out, but nothing more. No jerking off. I’ll be with you this time tomorrow, you can make it until then. We’ll work out what we want to do when I’m there.” 

“So, not a gift to Tommy,” Tommy says mournfully, pulling a face at Lovett.

Ronan says, “Hey now. I’m not leaving you to stew. You can discuss things as much as you like, but I want to plan with both of you where I can see you, okay? I promise you will get off. Don’t start fretting, Tommy. You’ve still got rules.”

Tommy tries not to breathe out too obviously. Lovett pulls a face at him. “This is just pandering, really.” 

“I’m sure you can find a way to make it work for you,” Ronan says, very firm. It’s not a command, but there’s no give in it, either.

Lovett shivers, and Tommy has seen this lowkey happen before but he’s never felt Lovett’s body react to his dom before. He’s never been able to openly pay attention to the way Lovett’s cheeks flush and the determined setting of his mouth. “You’re both making me want to break the rules,” he says, sliding his hand under Lovett’s tee shirt just to try and stave off his cravings to touch, touch, touch. As with everything on this journey so far, each step just makes him want to go further. Hold hands with them and run down the road of this metaphor. 

“Tommy’s being bad,” Lovett reports gleefully. He braces himself with his elbows, which is not comfortable for Tommy at all but that’s not going to stop either of them, on Tommy’s chest. “It’s cool, though. That I’m tempting you to wickedness.”

There are so many things that Tommy wants to say, the jokes about tidiness and the not jokes about Lovett and his decade long assault on Tommy’s moral fears. There’s the use of the word tempting, which is a too real encapsulation of what Lovett has been. Tommy says, “You’re hot, Lovett.” 

Lovett makes a noise that he turns into a laugh, and Ronan says, voice warm even coming out of a phone speaker, “I keep telling him. We can work on your dirty talk, though, Tommy.” 

“I think that was sweet talk,” Lovett says. “Which also needs work. I’m unendorsing you on Linkedin for communications.” 

Ronan says, “I’ll leave you to your ziprecruiter jokes, boys. Don’t stay up too late. Be good.”

*

Tommy says, “Working for you?” as he lurks around Lovett’s desk at lunch and Lovett nods. They’ve both been quiet at the office today and every time Tommy looks over at Lovett he’s got his headphones and is focussing on his screen in a way that Tommy knows he’s mirroring. The way when you have to work hard because there’s no way your brain has bandwidth for distractions, so much of it taken up with what’s happening later. 

“I really like anticipation,” Lovett says, leaning back in his chair to look up at Tommy. “So. Yeah.” The other thing that Tommy notices every time is Lovett’s mouth. Does he usually notice it like this or is it because he kissed Lovett for an hour last night and today’s Tommy’s mouth feels raw, and Lovett’s mouth still looks fuller than usual. “You?”

“I hate it, oh, wait, you knew that. Yeah, it’s working for me. Lots of things to remember to do.” He glances around and lets himself really smile at Lovett. They haven’t even kissed today, haven’t done anything outside of the usual realms of their friendship. Tommy’s brain keep trying to butt in with thoughts about how he has to tell them. Tell them he’s wanted Lovett so long that it’s practically a personality trait at this point. That he lies in his bed and listens to the A/C and the traffic and gets himself off to the thought that he belongs to them. But Ronan said to be good, and Ronan does not agree that you can worry productively. The rules are there to kick everything else noisy out of his brain. “I can’t even find the brain space to worry too much. Your boyfriend is a genius.”

“Certified,” Lovett says with a small, rueful laugh. “Thinking about how long it is until 6.45?”

Tommy thinks about the flight tracker he has open on his phone, the live traffic updater that’s always one tab over. “It’ll probably be way later than that by the time he gets here, the freeway is solid.” 

In fact it’s past eight by the time Ronan calls to say he’s in a car. Lovett had ordered food as soon as he landed, started puttering around his place putting things away, Pundit following him around steadily. Tommy considers stopping him, distracting him with something interesting or infuriating. Fuck, with some more making out. But he watches some more and this is clearly settling something in Lovett, making things nice, fiddling with the lights and testing all the speakers. Tommy wedges himself into the corner of the sofa with his book and doesn’t interfere. 

Lovett comes back into the room for the twentieth time and watches Tommy for a moment. 

“Yes?” Tommy says, not looking up from the page. 

Lovett says, “Nothing. Just. You always knew when to let me nap, too.” He drops a kiss onto Tommy’s head, as he passes to the kitchen, which he’s never done before, but Tommy recognises it.

When Ronan gets through the front door he looks small and rumpled. The off camera Ronan. He picks Pundit up and clutches her to his chest, buries his face in her fur, says, “Hi there, Thomas,” he leans down to Tommy, and does the exact same thing that Lovett did, one brief kiss right on the crown of his head. Tommy feels struck to his core. He knows this because it’s what Ronan and Lovett do when they’ve come home to each other.

They’re going to show him everything that no one else ever gets to see, are giving him the most deep-set piece of intimacy that they have. He has to be just as honest with them. Ronan throws himself into the easy chair and Lovett comes through, lit up all over his face. 

Tommy waits until Lovett has kissed Ronan, fended off some more delighted licking by Pundit, has not fended off any from Ronan. 

Tommy says, “Hey, um, hey, so, Ronan is here now.” He sounds pitchy as fuck. “So, we can talk.”

“Second thoughts?” Lovett says, going still where he stands, still slightly bent over Ronan in the chair. His hand twists in Ronan’s shirt collar. 

Tommy shakes his head. “I just, I should have said something earlier... I told Jon, I told Favreau this was casual,” he says. It was last month, but it feels like a year. “But what if it... What if it wasn’t. For me.” 

Ronan says, “Oh, Tommy.” There's so much surprise in his tone that Tommy can't work out what else he's feeling. 

Tommy says, “Shit, sorry, you literally just got here.” This isn’t even his house.

It’s Lovett who moves, who says, “No, Tommy, it’s alright.” He still looks kind of scared, but so gentle, Lovett who is so contradictory that the smaller the smile the more he means it, the more lines his face makes the less linear it is. This is always the smile that Tommy wants to kiss the most. That or the delighted, wide one that means that Lovett’s won at something. “We want to hear more, I really could stand to hear some more.”

Tommy keeps looking at Lovett’s face. “Favs was worried, I guess, because I was starting something with Ronan when I’ve I told him how I feel about you. I said it was okay because everyone’s a bit in love with you. They are! Just, I don’t think anyone else feels like this about you, Lovett, apart from maybe, you know, you, Ronan. Damn, pronouns.” 

Lovett says, “Just from lived experience, I am here to tell you that everyone is _not_ in love with me, to any extent. Really.” Ronan snorts and Lovett looks down at him. “What? What else am I even meant to say to something like... that.” Tommy wants to put an arm around his shoulder, let Lovett lean on him. He risks a look at Ronan, who looks way more ready to shrug than Tommy would have expected when someone tells you they’re in love with their boyfriend.

Ronan catches his expression, says, “Look, it would be shitty to say that I knew that and have that undermine you telling us. But, if you were worried that I didn’t know that there’s something more than friendly between you two, I did.” He reaches up and puts his hand over Lovett’s on his shoulder. “I have for a long time.”

“It’s not casual for us either,” Lovett says, very, very quietly. “I wouldn’t lend Ronan to just anyone. Actually, I’ve never lent him to anyone. Sharing is for preschoolers and hippies. Except, it turns out, unless it’s you. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for you, Tommy.” 

Tommy feels pinned by the weight of Lovett’s gaze, serious as he’s ever seen him, like he wants Tommy to feel each and every word. Tommy does.

“That was really gorgeous,” Ronan says, lifting himself up to kiss Lovett’s cheek so that Lovett can stay looking at Tommy. “As are you, both of you.”

“And you’re kind of the same exact dude, so it’s not even really like sharing,” Lovett says, with the face that Tommy knows means, _hey I’m here to make you laugh, all of you laugh._

Ronan says, “Oh, you noticed that, huh?” Lovett laughs, pulls Ronan up out of the chair by his hand, pulls them over to Tommy and sits them one on either side of him. 

Tommy says, “This is how I imagine falling asleep sometimes, when it’s too late and I’ve done every thought exercise I know, read twitter until the Brits are waking up. I imagine this.” It doesn’t always work to make him sleep, but it at least lets him stop beating himself up over screwing up a basic animal need. 

Lovett puts his head on Tommy’s shoulder. “Cool story bro.” 

“I expect it’s emblematic,” Ronan says. 

Lovett says, “Ohhh, okay. Got it.” He reaches for Ronan’s hand and holds it on Tommy’s thigh. “It sounds like it would be really warm, but I’d be up for trying it.” 

“I couldn’t even mention you having feelings for either of us for so long,” Ronan says. Tommy watches him stroke Lovett’s hand with his thumb. “I know it’s stupid but it felt like even mentioning it would be unlucky. But, god I hoped all day that you’d say something like this.”

“The dialogue was probably way better in your head,” Tommy says. He’s going to have to wrap his head around that; the prospect of having Tommy being something sunblind bright and awing to Ronan. 

“I honestly don’t remember,” Ronan says. “I went through a million variations, you know how I get when I’m invested in something. I like your dialogue. Not casual sounds perfect to me.”

Lovett makes a noise from where he’s still tucked into Tommy’s shoulder, comforting and for comfort. “I knew it, I knew you were doing some like, horrifying spiral masked as contingency planning.”

“While your rules worked so well for Lovett and I,” Tommy says. “Jeez, Ronan.” Ronan’s face is close to his, tired eyes behind his glasses. He doesn’t take care of himself and it makes Tommy mad. 

“Hey, Tommy, do you want to join me in wrangling this one?” Lovett says, sitting upright. “I recognise that tone. That’s the tone that means that your whole heart is overflowing with how stupid he is.” 

Tommy puts a pin in the kiss he wants to give Lovett, because he’s busy watching Ronan’s face change to something painfully hopeful. Maybe he should rethink having them on either side of him, however safe it makes him feel, because it’s impossible to look at them both at the same time. He says, “I could give it a shot, yeah.” 

“The not casual?” Ronan asks. 

“If that’s what you’re asking,” Tommy says. “If you’re asking me to try a relationship.” His cheeks are going to hurt from smiling so much if things carry on like this, but he’s good with it. They want him. He can be good with almost anything. 

Lovett says, “There is no try, Tommy. It’s a... That was a joke. I just meant, yes, be mine and be Ronan’s and let’s make this thing work. Trying seems kind of casual to me, frankly. Lucky for you, I know you better than to think you mean anything in a casual way ever. I can’t believe Jon didn’t call bs on that.” 

Tommy knows that Lovett sees it for the kindness it so clearly was. He wonders how long Jon would have let it continue. “He’ll at least be very glad that we brought him up so many times during this conversation.” 

“See, a person who knew the two of you less well would ask why that was, or why you have to convey any of this conversation to him,” Ronan says. He rolls his shoulders. 

Lovett leans around Tommy and manages to catch Ronan’s cheek with a kiss. “Let your guys take of you,” he says. “There’s Lebanese food waiting in the kitchen, and then sex, right? Certain promises were made, is all I’m saying.”

“I’m in for that too,” Tommy says, as his brain does a joyful replay of ‘your guys’. Maybe it’s pandering to Tommy’s obvious desires, but they could easily be Lovett’s desires too. 

“Threeway,” Ronan says, and Tommy says, “Oh fuck _off_ ,” and hits him in the leg.

Lovett makes Tommy carry all the food through while he gets drinks and resets the music yet again. Tommy gets out paper napkins and then has to go back for knives and then again for a glass for his coke and a spare can of La Croix for Ronan who always pretends that he doesn’t want any and then steals Lovett’s. 

Ronan says, “Stop fussing, Tommy. Come sit, eat.” He pats the edge of the sofa next to him, and his voice isn’t quite the voice, but there’s a suggestion of it in there.

“Should I?” Tommy asks, then shakes his head. “Do you want me up here or on the floor?” 

Lovett says, “Oh, of course this is how you are. Teacher’s pet.” Tommy, luckily for his sanity, can recognise a compliment even from Lovett’s most obtuse parts.

“Tommy is good at knowing what we want him to ask,” Ronan says. “Which is good, because the asking is hard for him too. And yes, floor please, honey, but don’t go too far under.” 

Tommy can’t go to the floor prettily like the boys in porn do, but Ronan hasn’t minded yet. And he once saw Lovett fall over literally nothing, right in front of the Washington Monument, the pinnacle of many moments of grace. 

It’s not a million miles from a lot of other nights, listening to Lovett and Ronan chat, just enjoying them. Ronan is glowy happy, lets Tommy eat almost all of his meal from his hand despite it clearly being a pain in the ass. Tommy has to make sure he keeps a little focus, doesn’t drift away. Ronan said not to. He and Lovett talk about Tommy and refer to his presence but don’t ask him questions. It’s so clear that Lovett has to just keep talking until he’s eventually ready to talk about how and when he’s going to submit. 

Lovett brings it up as “what they’re going to do with the whole two girls one cup situation” which makes Ronan snort out in his drink.

“I think I can manage both of you, but, maybe tonight we keep Tommy under and get him off before you get to play, what do you think?” 

Lovett nods, and then throws Ronan a coy smile. “I think you should spank him. Just my opinion.” Ronan inhales sharply and Lovett bites his lip, still looking only at Ronan but making every gesture big enough for Tommy to see. “He was so bad! He definitely did some frat boy bump and grind to me last night.”

Ronan reaches out and pets Tommy’s hair and Tommy can’t help himself, he stretches up to kiss the underside of Ronan’s arm, brain jangling. He wants Ronan to. He doesn’t want to be punished. 

“But he’s been very good all day, right? And look how excellent he’s being now.”

Lovett considers Tommy. “Exactly. That’s why you should spank him.” 

“Oh,” Tommy breathes. “Oh shit.” 

Lovett sits up in his chair, all prissy pleased. “See. Tommy totally wants you to. He wanted you to so bad. Too bad. It was a whole thing, repression and lines being drawn and all that. There’s no reason not to in this new era when we’re allowed to get Tommy off. Please? I know you’ve wanted to for ages.”

“I really want to,” Ronan groans. “That ass is practically writing an engraved invitation to be hit.” Tommy pushes up into his hand some more, already too ready for contact. He can’t even remember the last time he got hit. He, god, he told Lovett specifically that Ronan couldn’t do that, like Ronan couldn’t pull his hair, because Tommy is that into it that it would be like sex, even if he tried to make it not. Another thing he wouldn't have known to ask for, but Lovett knew to ask for him. 

Lovett says, “I have the best ideas, right?” and Ronan kisses him, hand tangled in Tommy’s hair. “I plan the best threeways, right?” 

“The very best, thank you, baby,” Ronan says, rough and Lovett makes the hottest noise as he breathes in. Tommy doesn’t know how he’s going to deal with actually seeing Ronan top Lovett in person and properly, but he’s pretty sure it’s going to test his refractory period at the very least. He whimpers. 

“Tell me,” Ronan says. Tommy is beyond relieved that he can get hard about that now. He was losing that battle anyway. 

Tommy says, “It's a great idea. That kind of pain, it's the easiest kind of turn on for me, takes me, fuck, I go all the way flying when I'm getting, um, spanked. Which I didn't tell Lovett but I think he worked out, and I love that he knew how exactly right it is for right now. I won't be able to stay in my head.You want I'll be so gone for you.” It's hard to keep the catch out of his voice, too turned on and overcome with the care they're showing him. “Lovett asking you to do it, that makes it even better.” 

Ronan pulls Lovett into his lap and somehow Lovett goes. Ronan says, “Come pet Tommy with me, sweetheart, he’s being brave.” 

Lovett reaches out and just puts his fingertips over the line of Tommy’s cheekbone.“Does this mean you’ll let Ronan spank you now you know it’s not a casual spanking on our end either?”

Tommy has to cough before he can speak. “I guess you did buy me dinner.” 

“Date Night,” Ronan says. “Turns out it is Like That.” 

Ronan leaves Lovett to set Tommy up in the living room while he shuts Pundit in the bedroom, gets some things. Tommy’s still allowing himself to drift a little, hasn’t been knocked all the way out, and having Lovett help undress him keeps his mind on the right track. He’s Ronan’s, and Lovett’s, and they’re going to have him exactly how they want him for Ronan to use. He can hear Ronan’s voice drift through the house, Pundit’s excited noises, Lovett’s laughter, and all the worries he had about not being able to do this, about being too keyed up to submit, drift away too. 

Lovett laughs at himself when his fingers fumble repeatedly on Tommy’s fly. “This is very, it’s just, I’ve thought about this kind of a lot. Over the years. In this room, sometimes.” 

They end up sort of teamworking Tommy out of his slacks, and Lovett sits him down on the L section of his sofa. “It works if you lie over this,” he says, neck flushing red. Tommy has to squeeze the base of his dick against that, the image of Lovett laid out over his neat grey sectional furniture and Ronan behind him. 

“Ronan,” Lovett yells. “What do we have to do, come on, Tommy is doing his best out here but we’re struggling.” 

Tommy focuses himself on getting himself into a good position on the sofa, turns himself over with his knees on the floor, far enough apart that he won’t fall or move, even if Ronan really goes to town on him. He winces, breathes again. When he opens his eyes Lovett is knelt in front of him on the other side of the sectional, and he kisses Tommy very sweetly. “You’re hot, Tommy,” he says, gently. 

Ronan being there isn’t a surprise, Tommy heard him come in, but he still startles when Ronan strokes along his back. 

“Please,” Lovett says. “Ronan, come kiss him?” 

Tommy has no idea how Lovett knows, always knows, the thing that Tommy’s brain hasn’t got to yet but needs. “You’re so good at this, shit,” he says, and the flush creeps further up Lovett’s neck. 

Ronan crouches next to Lovett. He’s changed into sweats and soft looking tee shirt that might be Lovett’s, and he bends, turns Tommy’s head and kisses him, pulling at Tommy’s lower lip, opening up his mouth and taking everything he wants. Tommy lets him. There’s nothing he wants to do more. 

“There,” Ronan says. “See, everyone’s a bit in love with Tommy Vietor.” He kisses the corner of Tommy’s mouth with his own impossibly soft one. “And now I’m going to spank you.” 

Lovett moves back, up onto the sofa to watch, he’s going to _watch_. He says, “There’s nothing intrinsically hot about the word spank, in fact it sounds kind of gross like, fifty percent of the time. But when it works, when someone can make it work, holy shit.” 

Tommy wants to keep looking at Lovett but he can’t even just through Ronan tugging off his briefs, running his hand over the swell of Tommy’s ass. He drops his head between his hands and closes his eyes.

Ronan runs his finger along Tommy’s spine. “Okay, this time I won’t make you look. But you have to count, that’s my compromise, okay? Count nice and loud so that Jon can hear you.”

Tommy nods, braces his body. 

“He won’t do it until you say you’re ready,” Lovett says. “Trust me.” 

Tommy thought, all those weeks ago, that it would be harder to have Lovett there, too much, that he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere with Lovett pulling at his attention. Instead he just feels... safer. He could reach out a hand and Lovett would be right there, would know what Tommy needed, would listen and know. Lovett’s literally been here. 

“I’m ready,” he says. He hears the floorboards creak as Ronan moves, and then there’s just the bright perfect moment of that first hit, where the surprise is always almost as good as the pain. “One,” he says. “Fuck. I don’t, I don’t think I’ll get to many, please don’t make me try.” 

Ronan says, “Oh, Tommy. Just enough this time to get you red.” He soothes a hand over where he just hit, which turns out to be the outer curve of Tommy’s ass, now that his body can register it properly. “It’s just such a peach, babe. I won’t bruise it, I just want to see it go that perfect red and stay like that. This time.” 

Tommy says, “If that’s what you want.” 

“I want to let you know you’ve been good,” Ronan says. “Now, hold still.” Tommy is still shocked, somehow by, “Two, god, three, four.” His breathing is shot already and he’s pressing himself into the sofa, and he can hear Lovett’s gasps every time Ronan’s hand comes down. 

“That’s perfect,” Ronan says, voice cutting through everything, the swirling haze of doing well and the ache in his balls and his dick, all the desperate, wanting ways his body is reacting to the pain. “We’re going to do this a lot, I think, don’t you, baby? He just looks so _good_.” 

“Edible,” Lovett says, and Ronan makes an affirmative noise. 

“That I totally want to see,” he says. “Have any of the men you slept with, none of which Jon approved of, ever eaten you out? Jon thinks that they haven’t but, like I said, he’s hated every single one.” 

Tommy shakes his head. “No. I’ve only, only with girls.” 

“You’re going to like it,” Lovett promises and Tommy shakes, ruts into the sofa, desperate, eyes still squeezed tight shut. If he looks at Lovett he’s going to embarrass himself. 

Ronan’s hand is on his hip at once, stilling him. “Not yet, I’m going to hit you some more, and when I say, you can touch yourself. Yes?”

“Yes,” Tommy manages. He doesn’t think many more words are going to come out. He sobs his way through five and six and seven, which lands harder than all of the rest, right at the top of his thigh. There’s nothing in the world apart from feelings, sensations, just Ronan’s hands and his own skin and the electric circuit they complete every time they come into contact. “Please, please,” he finds himself saying. Ronan hits him again and Tommy knows he has something to do but all he has is, “Oh, please, R’n, please.” 

“Eight,” Lovett says, voice clear. “Say eight, Tommy,” and Tommy does, and Ronan hits again in the same spot. 

“Nine, please,” Tommy begs. 

Ronan leaves his hand when he’d just hit, too hot on Tommy’s raw skin, another sensation to keep him overwhelmed. “Perfect. You can touch yourself now.” 

To do that Tommy has to push his hips up, pushing his ass into Ronan’s hand, but then he finally has a hand on his dick, and Ronan is saying yes, he’s finally saying yes, and it takes just a stroke and he’s coming, a full body mess, every nerve sparking and every muscle spasming, and it’s so good, so good, relief and satisfaction and success. Ronan keeps holding onto him, bends forwards and holds him around the waist so that Tommy doesn’t just faceplant forwards as his elbows and knees give way. 

Tommy hears Lovett say, “Holy shit,” shaky and loud. He pulls his hand up and it’s like lifting a dumbell just to get it to the level. He opens his eyes to brightness, so much brightness but then he can see Lovett’s knee and he reaches for it, pats it gratefully. “Hi Jon,” he says in the roughest voice he’s heard from himself since he left politics.

Lovett puts his hand over Tommy’s. “Tommy. God.”

“Sorry about your sofa,” Tommy says scratchily, and Lovett laughs. 

“I honestly don't give a shit. Don't you worry though, tidiest boy, it's the expensive kind of wipe clean. I have a dog.” 

Ronan strokes down Tommy back, broad handed and firm. Tommy wants to rub himself all over Ronan until he's made of nothing but touch. “Jon, baby, come back and kiss our Tommy some more, I want to see you take good care of him too.” He doesn't stop touching Tommy, all over his back and his shoulders, not where he hit but everywhere else. 

Tommy feels floaty. 

“Floaty af,” he says. 

Lovett leans forward, strokes his hair tentatively. Tommy pushes into his hand, needy and not caring who here knows it. Lovett says, laughing with resounding softness, “Fuck, I love high Tommy.” He sinks back down onto his haunches to kiss the corner of Tommy's eye. 

“That's exactly right,” Ronan says, putting his hand on the back of Tommy's neck. Tommy feels boxed up by them and he wants them to put a bow on him and never ever give him away. “Is Jon a nice reward for being so good for me, Tommy?” 

Tommy kisses Lovett again, lets himself take. He used to ration out going to Lovett's office when he was having a hard day, so that he'd know he'd earned that reward, the absolute best thing he could think to treat himself with. But the way he feels, the way Lovett makes him feel, has turned out to be an infinite resource. He says, “The nicest.” 

“I'm so glad I have you here to help me give him everything that he deserves,” Ronan says. He moves around until he's standing over Lovett, red contouring his face perfectly and his hair a mess. 

Lovett kisses Tommy on the forehead and then looks up at Ronan. The visual of it - Lovett with his head tipped back, exposing the pale stretch of his throat to Ronan, on his knees in front of him. Tommy has imagined it countless times but even with his newer first hand knowledge of all angles the reality knocks him out. Lovett says, “I thought that we were rewarding Tommy?”

“And that’s not giving you what you want?” Ronan says, putting his hand in Lovett’s hair, tender with ownership. Tommy doesn’t know if he will ever be able to deal with how they touch each other. He manages to push himself up onto his elbows to look at them properly. His whole body is aching but it’s worth it.

Lovett shrugs, still looking up at Ronan. Gazing. Gazing up at him. Ronan must be right, and in a way that Lovett likes. 

Ronan says, “Would you like to blow me, beautifuls? You both look so good down there that I want to take advantage.” He pulls showily at Lovett’s hair. “Tommy will probably let you finish me off, baby. He’s a good boy.” Lovett makes a breathy noise.

Tommy is still nodding, dazed, when Ronan is pushing his sweats down over his hips, which means that Lovett gets his mouth on Ronan first. It feels embarrassingly dirty to be watching Lovett’s pink mouth work up to the head of Ronan’s dick, Lovett’s eyes closed, Ronan’s hand in his hair. Ronan’s palm is probably still stinging from how hard he hit Tommy. 

“Please,” Tommy breathes. 

Lovett flicks a glance over to him, and it’s sharp like a smack, like every message that Tommy received at the office about how long he could spend on his knees that make his heart race. He reaches out for Tommy, wrenches his arm up with no care and wraps Tommy’s too slow hand around Ronan’s dick very gently. 

Ronan sucks in a breath and steps forward so that Lovett has to move with him, and Tommy feels it like the first time, just how good it’s always going to be to submit to Ronan, who commands a room with appallingly effortlessly grace. So relentless and so kind. 

Tommy manages to move his hand, push Ronan’s dick across his palm, across his fingers. Lovett shakes his head like he can’t quite believe this, and then dips down to lick messily between Tommy’s fingers. 

Tommy pants out a, “Jesus christ,” and Lovett sucks, just for a moment, at the tip of Tommy’s index finger, such a fucking show off. Tommy lumbers forwards, momentum made of wanting, to kiss him, forcing his mouth between his finger’s and Lovett’s mouth, kisses and kisses him, the three of them all a mess and a tangle, awkward angles and terrible positions. 

He feels Ronan’s hand in his hair, then press on the side of his head. “Put your mouths back on me,” Ronan says, voice cracking. “That’s right. My good boys, aren’t you?” 

Tommy makes a noise that is almost exactly the same as the one that Lovett makes. He keeps bumping his cheek in Lovett, slides his mouth over the head of Ronan’s dick to move away, and then down the other side, tasting him for the first time. 

Lovett still has his eyes closed, movements becoming deliberate in a way that Tommy recognises from the other side. Ronan is clearly moving him, guiding him with a firm hand, and Lovett is just lost to it, to making Ronan feel good, to keeping his mouth soft and available, to this work. He can’t kiss Lovett around Ronan’s cock really, but he can try and get close, get the soft skin of Ronan’s cock bumping against the perfect brush of Lovett’s lips, all hot and gorgeous against Tommy’s mouth. 

“My pretty, pretty boys,” Ronan says. His hands are shaking. Tommy loves this part, when he knows he’s undone someone, when he can see his hard work paying off, except now he’s also seeing Lovett’s hard work paying off and he’s always loved the shit out of that too. 

Lovett blinks his eyes open, glances upwards and then moves fast, swallows Ronan’s cock all the way down, eyes huge and wide as he watches Ronan flail out and then grip one of Lovett’s shoulders and one of Tommy’s, unflinching as he pushes one last inch of his dick into Lovett’s mouth, and swears, precise and loud, as he comes in one shuddering movement. 

Ronan cups Lovett’s cheek, and then falls back onto the sofa with an exaggerated, “Well!” Lovett sits up and wipes his mouth smugly. Ronan shakes his head. “Uh uh, babe, let Tommy clean you up some, you deserve it.” 

“Can I at least get back on the couch?” Lovett asks, but he drops his hand back down to his side at once, and doesn’t move until Ronan nods. 

“Come here, both of you,” Ronan says. “I want you closer.” He looks like very expensive porn, fucked out, tee shirt pulled out, spit wet dick softening against his thigh, eyes a burst of blue in the general malaise of his body and the low light. After Lovett levers himself to his feet he says, “Help Tommy up, Jon, he’s all sore.”

Jon is so careful with Tommy that there’s a second where Tommy thinks he’s doing something to make a point, but then he actually gets more upright, back to his more regular view of Lovett’s face, and he knows that Lovett is just... taking care of him. They get Tommy into a sitting position, and Tommy has to catch his breath as his over sensitised skin rasps against the material. Lovett says, “I’ve got some aloe, for later. Is it bad?” 

Tommy shakes his head. It really isn't, but he likes the thought of Lovett taking care of him to Ronan's satisfaction later, gentle hands rubbing lotion into him. Maybe they'll do that in bed.

“Can I?” Lovett asks Ronan, who nods. Lovett pulls Tommy up and then runs a speculative hand over his thigh, around to feel the heat coming off the skin of his flanks, his ass, everywhere that Ronan favoured with his hands. He says, “Do you like this, the part after, when you can still feel it?” 

It’s a very different kind of sensation now, all the sweeter because Lovett looks like he’s reliving it along with Tommy. “Yes,” Tommy says. “I like it. Like that you’re touching me where Ronan hit me.” 

“Where he spanked you,” Lovett corrects. “I can see the shape of his hand on you, Tommy. All over you, and then we made him come.” Tommy shivers unstoppably. Lovett’s words, Lovett’s hands over the imprint of Ronan’s. 

“Tommy loved watching you on your knees, didn’t you Tommy, just like you loved watching him bent over your sofa getting hit by your boyfriend,” Ronan says. 

Tommy says, “You just came, how are you, how are you so,” as Lovett drags him backwards until they fall next to Ronan, Tommy automatically caging Lovett in with his knees even though he’s never fallen in Lovett’s lap before, kisses the taste of Ronan out of Lovett's mouth. 

“You two are very inspiring,” Ronan says. He reaches over and pulls Lovett’s dick out, strokes him with a couple of brief, hard strokes until Lovett actually cries out. “I can’t wait to have to get you both all floaty and gone on each other. And to make you do all other kinds of terrible things, and to be very good. But god, I want to see what it’s like when there’s nothing in either of your fast fast brains except needing to touch each other, just getting to watch my gorgeous boyfriend get lost in feeling amazing. Being adored.” 

“Yes,” Tommy says, bending to kiss Lovett’s neck. It was so clearly made to be kissed over and over. “I can do that. I want to do that.”

“Tell him,” Ronan says. “Tell him what he deserves to hear.” It’s shorthand, the kind that he uses with Lovett, just expects him to know the reference, and Lovett always does. This time, Tommy does too. “And Jon? You just have to take it.”

Tommy says, “I’ve wanted to touch you for so long, kiss your neck, and your shoulders, fuck, they’re perfect, and kiss your thighs until my mouth hurts, and the place on your wrists where I can feel your pulse, and watch your eyes, god, lovely, they’re lovely, watch them go hazy, and your thighs, again, and I want to see you with your shirt off because I know, I know I’m going to want to touch there too, touch everywhere, can’t believe I get to-”

“Tommy,” Lovett says, harsh, mouth at Tommy’s shoulder, and then he’s coming, spilling onto Tommy’s stomach, clutching at him so tightly. “Fuck. Can we keep him?” he says to Ronan, looking over Tommy’s head, hands clasped around Tommy’s back, so close that Tommy is sure that he must be able to feel the way that makes his heart thump loud with joy.

“I’m fairly sure that’s the plan,” Ronan says, and smiles when Tommy nods and says, “Yes. Please.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk soft losers with me on [tumblr](https://crookedcommunela.tumblr.com/post/173585350247/i-wrote-this-thing-for-the-crooked-exchange)


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